Can a HOA in California make attendance for HOA meeting Mandatory?

I live in a small HOA community with 38 homeowners. The HOA meets twice (2x) a year and require all members to attend. On the newsletter they sent, they usually say that there will be a fine if a homeowner did not attend a meeting. Due to Religious observance, I have been excusing myself on the meeting as they always meet on Saturday mid-morning where my whole family goes to church (I'm a Seventh Day Adventist). The HOA manager has always been good at accepting my excuse as I always good at talking to her or other member of the board after the HOA meeting to get updates.

Regular attendance is about 25 to 30 homeowners as other homeowners have other reason for not excusing themselves such as work, vacation or their house is turned into a rental. On the last HOA meeting few homeowner complain that we never got 100% participation and propose to be strict on the fine on everyone and not accept any excuses for not attending (yes these are mostly retired or does not have anything to do on Saturday). Unfortunately, most homeowners agree to that proposal.

I looked in the CC&R and I did not see anything that talks about attendance. I guess this is just something that they were saying before to encourage homeowners to participate in the HOA meeting and it is now comeback to hunt them as some member now wanted this to be enforced.

My Question: Is it legal for an HOA in California to make attendance "Mandatory and impose fine" to its members?

Thanks!

I also have never heard of such a thing.

ChrisG10, if your HOA does not offer reasonable accommodation for your religion's requirement not to do whatever on Saturdays, then it is violating the federal Fair Housing Act and possibly fair housing laws in California as well. Other laws may come into play here as well, as others are pointing out. The first thing I would do is write the HOA Board a letter and say you believe that requiring your attendance on Saturdays violates the Fair Housing Act; would you please continue to make an exception for my attendance?

Truancy fines ? At the risk of being a Devil's Advocate, sounds like a good creative way to either get participation or raise revenues.
( Chris C10 : Maybe not the best idea to suggest to them that their fine-enforced meetings / revenue generation be scheduled to something like 3 am to 4 am on weekdays . . )

Yes. Our church have a defense counsel and I will use them if needed. I exchanged communication with the Property Manager last night and she said there is 1 homeowner that always raise the issue of mandatory attendance but they have never really fine anyone. So she said that I will be ok as she knows that I can't make it on the day they picked. If they do fine me then I will have to get our defense counsel involved.

Thanks!

Interesting idea, but a HOA can't mandate attendance.

If there's nothing in your CCRs or Bylaws that mandate this, point this out to the board and make them justify why they can do this.

I suspect your board came up with this because there was an issue with meeting quorum for meetings or Board elections, but I think that's really heavy handed and virtually impossible to enforce. What happens if you don't pay the fine? It's one thing to fine someone for maintaining a nuisance, but not showing up at a meeting????I

I can't remember if California allows proxies - if it does, the board could use those so absent owners can help establish quorum by appointing someone to come in their place to vote. Or take a poll to see which days people would prefer instead. You'll never make everyone happy, but perhaps you can come to a reasonable meeting day, perhaps even altering days (Saturday this month, Tuesday the next month)

Personally, I'm not fond of Saturday meetings because people are already busy with housecleaning, taking the kids to Scout meetings, church (not just Seventh Day Adventists, either), sorority meetings, etc.

By the way, if you really want answers to legal questions, you should consult an attorney.

I suspect you're right, Richard. the OP is talking about Board of Directors Meetings. The confusion exists because Chris calls them "HOA meetings." HOA meetings usually means meetings of the members, e.g. annual meetings & elections.

What you need to do, Chris is read your Bylaws because that's where the structure of meetings and the various kinds of meetings and how many meetings are discussed. If you're incorporated, you must have bylaws.

I'm curious Chris why you don't just ask a board member to show you where it's written that attendance is mandatory. If they can't show you, don't even worry about some sort of attorney.